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" Democrats talk about programs like Social Security or Medicare, but it's not clear to most voters what Democrats' core moral values are. "
Jonathan Haidt
Talk
Values
Security
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" The big breakthrough for me was, once I stopped disliking conservatives and could actually see what they were right about, they showed me a lot of things that liberals were wrong about. But at the same time, I think there are some things that liberals are right about that conservatives have trouble seeing. "
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" Liberals are my friends, my colleagues, my social world. "
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Liberals
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" On the religious Right and religious people in general have the feeling that the world is not just material, the world is not just there for us to do what we want with. That our bodies, things have an immaterial essence, a spiritual essence that God is in all of us. "
Jonathan Haidt
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" Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On the Right it's the opposite. They see business as good, as what generates wealth in society, and they see government as the oppressor, which makes it hard for especially small businesspeople. "
Jonathan Haidt
Society
Business
Good
" People are voting for the kind of country they want to live in, and there are different views about what kind of country we should have. "
Jonathan Haidt
Kind
Country
Voting
" I got interested in the American culture war back in 2004, and it's one of the only growth stocks I've ever invested in. "
Jonathan Haidt
War
American
Culture
" The most important thing to realize is we're not blank slates at birth. We don't start off with nothing in our heads, and then get imprinted entirely by our environment. There's something in our heads on the day we're born, and then we grow up and make choices. "
Jonathan Haidt
Start
Choices
Environment
" Conservatives tend to see the world more in terms of good-versus-evil and, for some of them, the nightmare is a disarmed citizenry that can be preyed upon by criminals. They know that having a gun in the house would increase the risk of an accident for a member of their family, but they're willing to take that risk. "
Jonathan Haidt
Gun
Know
Family
" Liberals have difficulty understanding the Tea Party because they think it is a bunch of selfish racists. But I think the Tea Party is driven in large part by concerns about fairness. "
Jonathan Haidt
Understanding
Selfish
Tea
" It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called 'openness to experience.' People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel. People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable. "
Jonathan Haidt
Experience
Travel
Personality
" Trying to run Congress without human relationships is like trying to run a car without motor oil. Should we be surprised when the whole thing freezes up? "
Jonathan Haidt
Car
Trying
Run
" Most of our social nature is like that of other primates - we're mostly out for ourselves. "
Jonathan Haidt
Social
Like
Nature
" Even if you have a brain predisposed to liberalism, you might end up with some conservative friends or find inspiring conservative role models who could be very influential on you, and that could send you down a different track in life. "
Jonathan Haidt
End
Friends
Down
" In accounts of men in battle, there is an incredible adrenaline rush from group-versus-group conflict. The fervor and passion of partisans is clearly rewarding; and if it's rewarding, it involves dopamine; and if it involves dopamine, then it is potentially addictive. "
Jonathan Haidt
Men
Conflict
Battle
" When I began my work on how morality varies across the political spectrum, there was a partisan, manipulative element to it. I wanted to help the Democrats win. "
Jonathan Haidt
Work
Win
Political
" When I think about life on Earth, there should not be a species like us. And if there was, we should be out in the jungle killing each other in small groups. That's what you should expect. "
Jonathan Haidt
Jungle
Life
You
" Politics is really religion. Politics is about sacredness. Politics is about offering a vision that will bind the nation together to pursue greatness. "
Jonathan Haidt
Vision
Religion
Greatness
" Economic issues are just as much moral issues as social issues. "
Jonathan Haidt
Social
Moral
Economic
" I think Republicans need to take income inequality more seriously. Not because I favor equality of outcomes. I do not. I think the Right is correct to stress merit and earned rewards, not handouts and forced equality. But I think what Republicans are blind to is that power corrupts. "
Jonathan Haidt
Think
Equality
Blind
" The great conservative insight is that order is really hard to achieve. It's really precious, and it's really easy to lose. "
Jonathan Haidt
Achieve
Precious
Lose
" People can believe pretty much whatever they want to believe about moral and political issues, as long as some other people near them believe it, so you have to focus on indirect methods to change what people want to believe. "
Jonathan Haidt
Change
Long
People
" While it is useful to rebut charges and get your arguments out in circulation, you have to understand that arguments and evidence have little impact on people as long as their feelings tilt them against you. "
Jonathan Haidt
You
Feelings
Impact
" Dividing into teams doesn't necessarily mean denigrating others. Studies of groupishness have generally found that groups increase in-group love far more than they increase out-group hostility. "
Jonathan Haidt
Found
More
Far
" The most powerful force ever known on this planet is human cooperation - a force for construction and destruction. "
Jonathan Haidt
Powerful
Cooperation
Construction
" Social reality is so complicated that, once you join one team or the other, you become specialized in detecting certain patterns, but you become blind to other patterns. "
Jonathan Haidt
Blind
Complicated
You
" My early research - I'm a social psychologist, and my early research was on how people make moral judgments. When I entered the field in 1987, everybody was looking at moral reasoning - how do kids reason about a moral dilemma? Should a guy steal a drug to save his wife's life? "
Jonathan Haidt
Looking
Life
People
" If you have a personality predisposed to liberalism, you might gravitate more to the artsy crowd or the anti-establishment crowd. And then those peers will affect you, and they will give you values, and you will copy them. "
Jonathan Haidt
Values
Will
Copy
" Our moral sense really evolved to bind groups together into teams that can cooperate in order to compete with other teams. "
Jonathan Haidt
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" I did say that in-group, authority and purity are necessary for the maintenance of order, but I would never give them a blanket endorsement. "
Jonathan Haidt
Give
Authority
Maintenance
" By temperament and disposition and emotions, I'm a liberal; but in my beliefs about what's best for the country, I'm a centrist. "
Jonathan Haidt
Liberal
Emotions
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